


crunch

by mothicalcreatures (laelreenia)



Series: Mac's Rats (one-shots) [5]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Autistic Character, Autistic Mac, Gen, Ice, Mac's rats make a cameo, Stimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9278966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laelreenia/pseuds/mothicalcreatures
Summary: Mac is honestly a little surprised that his friends haven't noticed the fact that he eats ice as a stim.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gullapip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gullapip/gifts).



Mac had a freezer in his workshop, one of those large chest freezers that you buy for overflow and the ability to bulk buy perishable food. It was filled, almost entirely, with those ten pound bags of ice. There were four bags of ice in total. They were covered by the three storage baskets which contained, in order: chemicals that needed stored at colder temperatures than Mac’s mini fridge, those multicolored push up freezer tube pops, and a bottle of really fancy vodka that Thornton had gotten him for… some reason Mac didn’t remember, Christmas possibly… forever ago. Mac kept telling himself he was waiting for just the right time to open it. In the open space next to the baskets and the bags of ice was a pile of a TV dinners of various kinds. Bozer refused to allow TV dinners in the freezer in the kitchen, so Mac kept his supply in his own freezer. The point here was that if you opened the freezer, you would not be able to see the bags of ice because of the strategically place other things in the freezer.

See, Mac _really_  liked crunching on ice. If you were to walk into Mac’s workshop while he was working on something or other, you could probably find him with a cup of ice, crunching on it while he worked. For some reason, none of his friends had ever noticed this. Sure Bozer sort of knew that when presented with water with ice in it, Mac would eat the ice once he’d finished the water, but he didn’t know about the crunching ice to stim part. It wasn’t intentional, it had kind of just happened. His workshop tended to be the main place the ice eating occurred, because crunching on ice was something he’d do to concentrate while he was building things, or if he was working on something elsewhere in the house Bozer or Jack (or Riley at this point) wouldn’t be around while he had the ice. After a while, Mac had turned it into a sort of game to see how long he could keep everyone from finding out that he probably ate more ice just to stim while he worked than drank liquid water at all.  

 

Bozer had rounded them all up for a movie night. Tonight’s movie, Casino Royale. Mac supposed it had really only been a matter of time before Bozer started making them all watch spy movies. Mac had been messing around in his workshop when Bozer came to drag him out to watch the movie. He grabbed his unfinished cup of ice without really thinking about it.

Mac sat down on the couch where Jack and Riley were waiting. Bozer dropped down next to Riley and grabbed the remote to start the movie. There was a large bowl of popcorn sitting on the coffee table, but Mac ignored it in favor of his cup of ice. (Pip and Mickey, however, were not ignoring the bowl of popcorn and were happily stuffing their cheeks.) Mac drank the little bit of melt water at the bottom of the cup and popped an ice cube into his mouth, biting down with a satisfying _crunch_.

Jack glanced over at Mac and Mac kept his face deliberately innocent, like crunching ice was something he did around Jack and the others all the time. When there was no reaction from Mac, Jack turned back to the movie. Mac kept eating ice.

Mac ran out of ice about halfway through the movie. He wasn’t going to get more ice at first, but then his mouth warmed up and his teeth felt like they were actually aching out of want to crunch on ice. So he muttered to Jack that he’d be right back and slipped off to his lab for more ice.

 

When Mac was gone Jack turned to Bozer, who’d been trying to tell Riley some behind the scenes fact about the movie. “Does Mac normally eat ice?” he asked.

“He did a lot when we were kids,” Bozer said. “And he will if his drink’s got leftover ice, but not like just straight up eating it anymore... I don’t think.”

“Was he eating ice?” Riley asked.

“Yeah, he had a whole big cup that was just full of ice,” Jack said. “I’m surprised you couldn’t hear the crunching.”

“I can barely hear the movie with Bozer talking non stop about it,” Riley said.

“Yeah, I’ve learned to tune Bozer out,” Mac said, coming up behind the couch. “It’s a skill.”

Jack nearly jumped when Mac spoke. “Don’t sneak up on us like that.”

“I wasn’t sneaking,” Mac said, laughing a little as he rejoined them on the couch. “But yes, I do eat ice. It helps me concentrate and I like the way it feels.”

Bozer squinted at Mac, “Okay, I have _never_  seen you use the ice dispenser in the fridge.”

Mac grinned. “I buy bagged ice. I’ve got four big bags in the freezer in my lab.”

Bozer’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

“You can look in the freezer if you want.”

“I _have_ ,” Bozer said. “All you’ve got in there are microwave food, popsicles, and chemicals.”

“Yeah, but that’s just the stuff on top, the ice is under all of that.”

“How did I not notice?”

“Well because I eat ice to concentrate for the most part, it happens in my workshop, and that is where the freezer is. I wasn’t intentionally keeping it from you, but it was fun to see how long it took you guys to notice.”

Bozer grumbled and reached for the remote.

“What are you doing?” Mac asked.

“Rewinding the movie, cause we missed stuff while we were talking.”

Riley gave Bozer an incredulous look. “ _Really?_ ”

Mac chuckled and stuck an ice cube in his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who have forgotten or just don't know who Pip and Mickey are, they're Mac's African Giant Pouched Rats, who act as his emotional support animals, check out, [this fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8465692), for more information.


End file.
